Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Politics of the Plate: Selling the Farm
For a sixth-generation farming family, the time has finally come to let go.
August 13, 2009
Gourmet
Last Friday, for the first time in 144 years, no one at the Borland family farm got out of bed in the pre-dawn hours—rain, shine, searing heat, or blinding blizzard—to milk the cows. A day earlier, all of Ken Borland’s cattle and machinery had been auctioned off. After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family.
Photo: A barn, eventually purchased by the Borlands, is raised in the 1880s.
It was not a decision they wanted to make. A fit, vigorous 62-year-old, Borland could have kept working. His son, who is 35 and has two sons of his own, was once interested in taking over. But the dismal prices that dairy farmers are receiving for their milk forced the Borlands to sell. “We’ve gone through hard times and low milk prices before,” said Borland’s wife, Carol, a retired United Methodist minister. “This time there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no sense working that hard when you’re 62 just to go into debt.”
For several months I’d been reading headlines and following the statistics behind the current nationwide dairy crisis. The math is stark. Prices paid to farmers per hundredweight (about 12 gallons) have fallen from nearly $20 a year ago to less than $11 in June. Earlier this month, the Federal government raised the support price by $1.25, but that is only a drop in the proverbial bucket. It costs a farmer about $18 to produce a hundredweight of milk. In Vermont, where I live, that translates to a loss of $100 per cow per month. So far this year, 33 farms have ceased operation in this one tiny state.
Meanwhile, the price you and I pay for milk in the grocery store has stayed about the same. Someone is clearly pocketing the difference. Perhaps that explains why profits at Dean Foods—the nation’s largest processor and shipper of dairy products, with more than 50 regional brands—have skyrocketed. The company announced earnings of $75.3 million in the first quarter of 2009, more than twice the amount it made during the same quarter last year ($30.8 million). (Dean countered that “current supply and demand is contributing to the low price environment.”)
Photo: An aerial view of the “new” barn, built by Ken Borland and his father in 1970.
But rote statistics have a way of masking reality. So last week, I drove up to the village of West Glover for a firsthand look at the human side of the dairy crisis by attending the Borland auction. “You will be witnessing what is going to be the fate of all heritage farms,” Carol Borland told me.
It was a breathtakingly clear morning in one of the most stunning settings imaginable. The Northeast Kingdom is an undulating patchwork of fields, woodlots, streams, lakes, barns, and white clapboard houses, set against the jagged, blue-gray backdrop of distant mountaintops. I didn’t need a sign to direct me to the Borland place: For more than a mile before I crested a hill and saw the barns and silos, the gravel road leading to the farm was lined with dusty, mud-splattered pickup trucks. A crowd of close to 900 had gathered, in part because a country auction is always a major social event, a festive excuse for bone-weary farmers to take a day off, bring the kids, catch up with the gossip, and grumble about the weather, costs, and prices. That made it easy to overlook the sad, serious nature of the business at hand: selling off every last item there (and with any luck, providing the Borlands with a retirement nest egg). Among other things to go on the auction block was a massive amount of equipment, much of which had been shared with neighbors in loose, mutually beneficial arrangements stretching back generations. The demise of one family farm can affect similar small operators for miles in all directions. The auctioneer had to sell a half-dozen tractors, a dump truck, a couple of pickup trucks, manure spreaders, hay balers, wagons, seeders, mowers, milking machines, and assorted antique farm implements. There was feed that Borland had harvested but would no longer have any use for, 50 tons of shelled corn, 800 bales of hay. And, last in the photocopied catalogue, 140 prime Holsteins, a herd known for its excellence, having earned Borland 16 quality awards over the previous two decades. Unlike the cows that pass their lives in complete confinement on the factory farms that are replacing farms like his, Borland’s cows went out on those hilly pastures every day, strengthening their bodies and feeding on grass. Borland worried that with most other farmers as financially strapped as he was, or worse, the cows might not sell. “I didn’t spend my whole life breeding up a good herd to see them beefed” (meaning slaughtered for hamburger meat), he said.
Items were sold at a nerve-rattling pace as the auctioneer chanted his frenzied, mesmerizing, “I’ve got five. Give me ten, ten, ten. Five, gimme ten, ten, ten. A ten dollar bill. Five gimme ten, ten ten.” Three “ringmen” worked the crowd, waving their canes to cajole bids, and whooping when the price rose. A John Deere tractor started at $25,000 and was dizzily bid up to $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, and finally $60,000, in a matter of three minutes. Lesser machines sometimes sold in half that time. All morning long, there was no let-up.
Photo: Ken Borland leads his prize Holstein cows to pasture.
Just after the Deere was sold, I asked Borland’s son Nathan how he thought things were going. “Online, that tractor would be listed for $75,000, if you can find one half that good, which you can’t,” he said. “But I guess you can’t complain, given how hard it is for everybody.”
After attending college and working out of state for a few years, Nathan came home and joined his father on the farm. But he left to become a paramedic. “I like the work, but it got so bad financially that I felt guilty taking a paycheck,” he said. “My sons, they’re young. It’d be nice if they wanted to farm one day, but there’s not a living to be made in dairy farming.”
Carol, who was beside us, added, “The reality of farming is that as a parent, even if you’d like to and they want to, you can’t encourage a child to go into something where he won’t be able to earn a decent living.”
Once the last piece of machinery was gone, the throng moved to folding chairs set up around a fenced ring inside the barn. Borland, who had been taciturn and shy most of the day, stood before the crowd to deliver a short speech. After thanking everybody for coming and expressing his gratitude for the efforts of the auction crew, he said, “I just want to say that these are a good bunch of cows. This auction wasn’t their fault. They’ve always done their part. They have produced well.”
Then he told a sad joke. “There was this farmer’s son who left the farm and found work as a longshoreman in the city. The first ship that came in carried a cargo of anvils. To impress his new workmates, the boy picked up two anvils, one under each arm. But the gangplank snapped under the weight. He fell into the water and sank. He came up one time and shouted for help. No one moved. He went down and came up a second time. Still no help. The third time he came up he hollered, ‘If you guys don’t help me soon, I’m going to have to let go of one of these anvils.”
Photo: The Borlands’ granddaughters bring in the cows—the sixth generation of Borlands to do so on the same farm.
There was nervous laughter. Borland went on, “That’s what farming’s been these last six months, trying to stay afloat with anvils. This is the day that I let go of mine.”
The herd sold well. As an emotional bonus, 20 went to local farmers and would still be grazing on nearby pastures. Borland and Carol were pleased with the overall proceeds of the auction, and doubly pleased because they had been fortunate enough to find a buyer for the property and buildings who would take good care of the land that had supported their family through the generations. The Borlands severed off a piece of land where they will build a house. In the spring, they still plan to tap some maples. The sap will be boiled in the sugarhouse that Borland’s great-grandfather built in 1898.
Before the auction, Borland had told his son that he planned to sleep until noon the day afterwards. Fat chance. He was up at 3:30 in the morning, as always. A few cows that had been sold had yet to be picked up, and cows, even ones that now belong to another man, need to be milked. He finished that chore and drove the full milk cans over to a neighbor who was still in the business and had a cooling tank. Borland offered him a lift back to a hayfield he wanted to cut that day. As they rode along in the cab of the truck with the early morning sun streaming over the mountains, the neighbor said, “Ken, do you know how many farmers around here would give anything to be in your shoes? We have to keep struggling. You had a way out.”
http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2009/08/selling-the-farm?printable=true
Politics of the Plate: Selling the Farm
For a sixth-generation farming family, the time has finally come to let go.
August 13, 2009
Gourmet
Last Friday, for the first time in 144 years, no one at the Borland family farm got out of bed in the pre-dawn hours—rain, shine, searing heat, or blinding blizzard—to milk the cows. A day earlier, all of Ken Borland’s cattle and machinery had been auctioned off. After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family.
Photo: A barn, eventually purchased by the Borlands, is raised in the 1880s.
It was not a decision they wanted to make. A fit, vigorous 62-year-old, Borland could have kept working. His son, who is 35 and has two sons of his own, was once interested in taking over. But the dismal prices that dairy farmers are receiving for their milk forced the Borlands to sell. “We’ve gone through hard times and low milk prices before,” said Borland’s wife, Carol, a retired United Methodist minister. “This time there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no sense working that hard when you’re 62 just to go into debt.”
For several months I’d been reading headlines and following the statistics behind the current nationwide dairy crisis. The math is stark. Prices paid to farmers per hundredweight (about 12 gallons) have fallen from nearly $20 a year ago to less than $11 in June. Earlier this month, the Federal government raised the support price by $1.25, but that is only a drop in the proverbial bucket. It costs a farmer about $18 to produce a hundredweight of milk. In Vermont, where I live, that translates to a loss of $100 per cow per month. So far this year, 33 farms have ceased operation in this one tiny state.
Meanwhile, the price you and I pay for milk in the grocery store has stayed about the same. Someone is clearly pocketing the difference. Perhaps that explains why profits at Dean Foods—the nation’s largest processor and shipper of dairy products, with more than 50 regional brands—have skyrocketed. The company announced earnings of $75.3 million in the first quarter of 2009, more than twice the amount it made during the same quarter last year ($30.8 million). (Dean countered that “current supply and demand is contributing to the low price environment.”)
Photo: An aerial view of the “new” barn, built by Ken Borland and his father in 1970.
But rote statistics have a way of masking reality. So last week, I drove up to the village of West Glover for a firsthand look at the human side of the dairy crisis by attending the Borland auction. “You will be witnessing what is going to be the fate of all heritage farms,” Carol Borland told me.
It was a breathtakingly clear morning in one of the most stunning settings imaginable. The Northeast Kingdom is an undulating patchwork of fields, woodlots, streams, lakes, barns, and white clapboard houses, set against the jagged, blue-gray backdrop of distant mountaintops. I didn’t need a sign to direct me to the Borland place: For more than a mile before I crested a hill and saw the barns and silos, the gravel road leading to the farm was lined with dusty, mud-splattered pickup trucks. A crowd of close to 900 had gathered, in part because a country auction is always a major social event, a festive excuse for bone-weary farmers to take a day off, bring the kids, catch up with the gossip, and grumble about the weather, costs, and prices. That made it easy to overlook the sad, serious nature of the business at hand: selling off every last item there (and with any luck, providing the Borlands with a retirement nest egg). Among other things to go on the auction block was a massive amount of equipment, much of which had been shared with neighbors in loose, mutually beneficial arrangements stretching back generations. The demise of one family farm can affect similar small operators for miles in all directions. The auctioneer had to sell a half-dozen tractors, a dump truck, a couple of pickup trucks, manure spreaders, hay balers, wagons, seeders, mowers, milking machines, and assorted antique farm implements. There was feed that Borland had harvested but would no longer have any use for, 50 tons of shelled corn, 800 bales of hay. And, last in the photocopied catalogue, 140 prime Holsteins, a herd known for its excellence, having earned Borland 16 quality awards over the previous two decades. Unlike the cows that pass their lives in complete confinement on the factory farms that are replacing farms like his, Borland’s cows went out on those hilly pastures every day, strengthening their bodies and feeding on grass. Borland worried that with most other farmers as financially strapped as he was, or worse, the cows might not sell. “I didn’t spend my whole life breeding up a good herd to see them beefed” (meaning slaughtered for hamburger meat), he said.
Items were sold at a nerve-rattling pace as the auctioneer chanted his frenzied, mesmerizing, “I’ve got five. Give me ten, ten, ten. Five, gimme ten, ten, ten. A ten dollar bill. Five gimme ten, ten ten.” Three “ringmen” worked the crowd, waving their canes to cajole bids, and whooping when the price rose. A John Deere tractor started at $25,000 and was dizzily bid up to $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, and finally $60,000, in a matter of three minutes. Lesser machines sometimes sold in half that time. All morning long, there was no let-up.
Photo: Ken Borland leads his prize Holstein cows to pasture.
Just after the Deere was sold, I asked Borland’s son Nathan how he thought things were going. “Online, that tractor would be listed for $75,000, if you can find one half that good, which you can’t,” he said. “But I guess you can’t complain, given how hard it is for everybody.”
After attending college and working out of state for a few years, Nathan came home and joined his father on the farm. But he left to become a paramedic. “I like the work, but it got so bad financially that I felt guilty taking a paycheck,” he said. “My sons, they’re young. It’d be nice if they wanted to farm one day, but there’s not a living to be made in dairy farming.”
Carol, who was beside us, added, “The reality of farming is that as a parent, even if you’d like to and they want to, you can’t encourage a child to go into something where he won’t be able to earn a decent living.”
Once the last piece of machinery was gone, the throng moved to folding chairs set up around a fenced ring inside the barn. Borland, who had been taciturn and shy most of the day, stood before the crowd to deliver a short speech. After thanking everybody for coming and expressing his gratitude for the efforts of the auction crew, he said, “I just want to say that these are a good bunch of cows. This auction wasn’t their fault. They’ve always done their part. They have produced well.”
Then he told a sad joke. “There was this farmer’s son who left the farm and found work as a longshoreman in the city. The first ship that came in carried a cargo of anvils. To impress his new workmates, the boy picked up two anvils, one under each arm. But the gangplank snapped under the weight. He fell into the water and sank. He came up one time and shouted for help. No one moved. He went down and came up a second time. Still no help. The third time he came up he hollered, ‘If you guys don’t help me soon, I’m going to have to let go of one of these anvils.”
Photo: The Borlands’ granddaughters bring in the cows—the sixth generation of Borlands to do so on the same farm.
There was nervous laughter. Borland went on, “That’s what farming’s been these last six months, trying to stay afloat with anvils. This is the day that I let go of mine.”
The herd sold well. As an emotional bonus, 20 went to local farmers and would still be grazing on nearby pastures. Borland and Carol were pleased with the overall proceeds of the auction, and doubly pleased because they had been fortunate enough to find a buyer for the property and buildings who would take good care of the land that had supported their family through the generations. The Borlands severed off a piece of land where they will build a house. In the spring, they still plan to tap some maples. The sap will be boiled in the sugarhouse that Borland’s great-grandfather built in 1898.
Before the auction, Borland had told his son that he planned to sleep until noon the day afterwards. Fat chance. He was up at 3:30 in the morning, as always. A few cows that had been sold had yet to be picked up, and cows, even ones that now belong to another man, need to be milked. He finished that chore and drove the full milk cans over to a neighbor who was still in the business and had a cooling tank. Borland offered him a lift back to a hayfield he wanted to cut that day. As they rode along in the cab of the truck with the early morning sun streaming over the mountains, the neighbor said, “Ken, do you know how many farmers around here would give anything to be in your shoes? We have to keep struggling. You had a way out.”
http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2009/08/selling-the-farm?printable=true
Oil states say no talks on replacing dollar
Tue Oct 6, 2009 11:54am
Business Update: Dollar skids on oil
Play Video
More Video...Related News
Gulf region to stay with dollar for oil: UAE central bank source
4:14am EDT
Saudi central bank: report on replacing dollar is wrong
4:14am EDT
No need to replace U.S. dollar for oil trade: Algeria
4:14am EDT
SNAP ANALYSIS: Ending dollar oil sales easy; pricing is hard
12:28am EDT
Russia: hasn't discussed changing dollar role in oil
4:14am EDT
Oil shift from U.S. dollar would need broad backing: Iran FinMin
11:54am EDTBy Simon Rabinotvitch and Wayne Cole
ISTANBUL/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report on Tuesday that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the U.S. dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil.
The dollar eased in response to the report, which was written by The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk and cited unidentified sources in Gulf Arab states and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.
It said the proposal was for trade in crude oil to move over nine years to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The report coincides with a wider debate on the role of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, which has come under question. For most of this decade, the United States has struggled to maintain the dollar's value.
But top officials of Saudi Arabia and Russia, speaking on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund meetings in Istanbul, denied there were such talks. The two countries are the world's largest and second-largest oil exporters.
Asked by reporters about the newspaper story, Saudi Arabia's central bank chief Muhammad al-Jasser said: "Absolutely incorrect." He repeated the same response when asked whether Saudi Arabia was in such talks.
Kuwait's oil minister and a well-placed source in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries made similar remarks. Russia's deputy finance minister Dmitry Pankin said: "We did not discuss this at all."
The dollar slipped after the newspaper story. The euro edged up as high as $1.4756, although it fell back to $1.4701 when the Saudi Arabian and Russian officials denied the report. Oil prices rose above $71 a barrel on Tuesday.
Algerian Finance Minister Karim Djoudi told Reuters: "Oil producing countries need to stabilize revenues but...I don't see a need for oil trade to be denominated differently.
"But we are at the IMF conference where all sorts of subjects are raised and discussed," he added.
'NOT LIKELY'
Analysts said that while individual countries would find it relatively easy to stop using the dollar in oil trades, as Iran has done, replacing the currency in which oil is priced would require a massive effort.
The newspaper story did not make clear how the change would work, and many analysts doubted it would occur any time soon.
"I don't think this is a likely scenario in the short to medium term," said Carsten Fritsch, oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "Without Saudi Arabia's support it is difficult to imagine that the dollar will be replaced."
Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states peg their currencies to the dollar. Continued...
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59507620091006
Oil states say no talks on replacing dollar
Tue Oct 6, 2009 11:54am
Business Update: Dollar skids on oil
Play Video
More Video...Related News
Gulf region to stay with dollar for oil: UAE central bank source
4:14am EDT
Saudi central bank: report on replacing dollar is wrong
4:14am EDT
No need to replace U.S. dollar for oil trade: Algeria
4:14am EDT
SNAP ANALYSIS: Ending dollar oil sales easy; pricing is hard
12:28am EDT
Russia: hasn't discussed changing dollar role in oil
4:14am EDT
Oil shift from U.S. dollar would need broad backing: Iran FinMin
11:54am EDTBy Simon Rabinotvitch and Wayne Cole
ISTANBUL/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report on Tuesday that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the U.S. dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil.
The dollar eased in response to the report, which was written by The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk and cited unidentified sources in Gulf Arab states and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.
It said the proposal was for trade in crude oil to move over nine years to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The report coincides with a wider debate on the role of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, which has come under question. For most of this decade, the United States has struggled to maintain the dollar's value.
But top officials of Saudi Arabia and Russia, speaking on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund meetings in Istanbul, denied there were such talks. The two countries are the world's largest and second-largest oil exporters.
Asked by reporters about the newspaper story, Saudi Arabia's central bank chief Muhammad al-Jasser said: "Absolutely incorrect." He repeated the same response when asked whether Saudi Arabia was in such talks.
Kuwait's oil minister and a well-placed source in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries made similar remarks. Russia's deputy finance minister Dmitry Pankin said: "We did not discuss this at all."
The dollar slipped after the newspaper story. The euro edged up as high as $1.4756, although it fell back to $1.4701 when the Saudi Arabian and Russian officials denied the report. Oil prices rose above $71 a barrel on Tuesday.
Algerian Finance Minister Karim Djoudi told Reuters: "Oil producing countries need to stabilize revenues but...I don't see a need for oil trade to be denominated differently.
"But we are at the IMF conference where all sorts of subjects are raised and discussed," he added.
'NOT LIKELY'
Analysts said that while individual countries would find it relatively easy to stop using the dollar in oil trades, as Iran has done, replacing the currency in which oil is priced would require a massive effort.
The newspaper story did not make clear how the change would work, and many analysts doubted it would occur any time soon.
"I don't think this is a likely scenario in the short to medium term," said Carsten Fritsch, oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "Without Saudi Arabia's support it is difficult to imagine that the dollar will be replaced."
Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states peg their currencies to the dollar. Continued...
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59507620091006
The Demise of the Dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
October 6, 2009
The Independent, UK
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Image: Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60% of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10% of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html
The Demise of the Dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
October 6, 2009
The Independent, UK
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Image: Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60% of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10% of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html
Thanks! Should keep me busy for a while at least.
Lost Vegas
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2651937/The-people-living-in-drains-below-Las-Vegas.html
Pictures and video of the many, many people living in the flood tunnels under Las Vegas.
Micro-Hydro for Homestead/Retreat Power Generation
A majority of survivalist websites spend a large portion of their time expounding on the benefits of generating one's own electricity through the use of solar panels. Who can blame them? Solar panels are an out-of-the-box solution (other than having to mount them), they produce clean, reliable electricity and they require almost no upkeep on the part of the user. Heck, even if you choose to make them yourself instead of buying commercially-built panels, all but the 'out-of-the-box solution' part is still true. Basically, the only thing bad about outfitting your homestead or retreat with solar panels is the expense, which, depending on how much power you need, can be phenomenally high.
Another very popular approach is to install one or more wind turbines in order to harness that resource to generate clean electricity. In the classic sense of a windmill, the wind catches the blades and turns the wheel, which in turn spins a permanent magnet alternator that generates power. This type of system is often used in concert with solar panels as the two smartly complement one another: the wind typically blows stronger at night when the solar is obviously not going to be working, thus picking up the slack; this is also true in the winter months when overcast conditions greatly reduce solar panel efficiency, but the wind typically blows faster and stronger than at any other point in the whole year. Small wind turbines, capable of generating up to 400 watts in the proper windspeeds, can be purchased for home use, or you can build your own. You can even make yours larger and capable of producing more power, if you possess the ingenuity and a suitable location for a large tower.
But, depending on the location of your homestead or retreat and its proximity to a reliable source of running water, you may have another option for generating clean, reliable power: Micro-Hydroelectric. There is some debate over the terminology involved with some insisting that the 'Micro-' prefix be used only when describing systems that produce between 5-100 kW of power and those producing less (suitable for a single homestead or retreat) be referred to as Pico-Hydro instead, but we will not be concerning ourselves with such distinctions here. Many assumptions concerning Pico-Hydro setups, such as that it is "useful [only] in small, remote communities that require only a small amount of electricity - for example, to power one or two fluorescent light bulbs and a TV or radio in 50 or so homes," are likewise not germane to our conversation here, because the system I am describing would be used to charge a bank of deep-cycle batteries as opposed to running appliances, etc. directly from the amperage produced.
A well thought-out and informative treatise on Small Hydroelectric Plants can be found online in PDF format courtesy of the West Virginia extension site at http://www.wvu.edu/~exten/infores/pubs/ageng/epp13.pdf, but it mostly concerns itself with the standard practice of using a water source that has a lot of head and flow.
Another alternative site that showcases a design I really like is http://www.HomeBrewHydro.com. This setup utilizing an old olive barrel was initially producing "90 watts at 36PSI from a 1-1/2 inch pipe with roughly 100 feet of head" before upgrading his penstock and nozzles, which he estimates to have roughly doubled the output.
Another very promising concept is the one built by Sam Redfield of the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) that is housed in a common five gallon bucket and fabricated using common PVC components and an old Toyota alternator that has been modified to make it capable of generating usable electricity at low RPMs.
The generator was envisioned as a means to provide electricity to remote communities in the developing world without access to the power grid. What you end up with is a generator producing about 60 watts that can be used to charge batteries and small appliances such as cellular telephones, or other small-scale purposes. It is simple and easy to build with readily-available and/or easily scroungeable parts and, at worst, you may have to invest a few hundred dollars maximum. (source)
Yeah, I know 60 watts doesn't sound like much, but remember what I said earlier about this being a system for charging a bank of deep-cycle batteries and not planning to run any appliances or anything like that directly off the power it is spitting out. Run your stuff directly from the batteries, while using this system to charge them. If you built it sturdy enough that you felt comfortable leaving it running over night, 60 watts would net you 1,440 watts. According to my math, this would allow you to comfortably drain your battery bank by 120 amp-hours per day, while remaining confident that your hydroelectric system would replenish what you had used. Still not impressed? Consider then that a slightly more powerful setup, say somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 amp-hours per day in a 12 volt arrangement, would allow me to run my big ol' two-door Energy Star refrigerator/freezer combo with ice in the door. Suddenly, 120 AH doesn't sound so puny, huh?
Of course, to be fair, this doesn't account for the power that would be used by other components such as the inverter and the charge controller, and you would need to spend some money on deep-cycle batteries because you never want to let them get discharged too deeply. It kills them. Being sure, however, to limit your average depth of discharge to around 25% will net you long battery life (10-15 years in some instances) before they have to be replaced. So, if you're using 150 AH per day to run a fridge, you need to have a battery bank capable of storing no less than 600 AH. For instance, one could purchase six (6) of these 12 Volt 105 Amp Hour Sealed Solar Deep Cycle Batteries at just shy of $1,500.00 total and it would do the trick pretty well. Add to that a few hundred dollars to put together the bucket hydro system described above and you have the beginnings of a self-sufficient, off-grid electrical system for under $2,000.00 that you can continue to add to as you go.
And, oh yeah, to do the same thing with solar would require panels that add up to about 750 watts (750 watts x about 2.5 dependable average solar hours at my latitude = 1,875 watts / 12 volts = 156.25 amps or amp-hours). A solar array equaling that kind of wattage would cost me just under $1,500.00 in today's prices and that's before I pay the $1,500.00 listed above to procure my batteries, bring the total cost to around $3,000.00, fully $1,000.00 more expensive than with the system described here in this article. And remember that's at today's solar prices where panels can be had for as little as $1.98/watt with a little shopping around; as recently as 6-9 months ago they were still hovering around $5.00/watt.
Also, one should keep in mind that building a 2nd bucket hydro generator would double the electrical output, while only bringing the total cost to around $2,300.00. This would provide another 90 AH of power (120 x 2 = 240 - 150 = 90) or 1080 watts (90 x 12 volts = 1080) to use for other smaller appliances, lighting, etc. The AH rating of the batteries listed above still leaves us with a 30 AH cushion above and beyond the 600 we said we needed also. Therefore, we only need to purchase battery capacity equaling 330 AH (90 x 4 = 360 - 30 = 330) to keep our system under the 25% discharge ceiling we set earlier. The only problem is the batteries are rated for 105 AH each, so it is impossible to hit the mark exactly; purchasing 4 more batteries would be best, especially if you intend to continue to expand, but you could probably get away with only 3 since the 25% discharge ceiling is meant to be an average estimate. So, after adding the batteries, that leaves you with a system that cost you under $3,050.00 and allows you to produce 2,880 watts or 240 AH of total electricity per 24 hour period. The same output using solar panels would cost around $4,530.96 (1,152 watts of panels x about 2.5 dependable average solar hours at my latitude = 2,880 watts / 12 volts = 240 amps or amp-hours and 1,152 watts of panels x $1.98/watt = $2,280.96 + slightly less than $2,250.00 for the battery bank = just shy of $4,530.96 total cost). So, as you can see, the savings over solar increase exponentially each time you expand the system.
All that from a homemade bucket generator that produces a measly 60 watts.
You might also like:
DIY Wind Turbine Plans
U.S. Firm Signs To Build World's Largest Solar Field
Making Your Own DIY Solar Panels: Don't Be Fooled, but Don't Be Discouraged Either
An Exceptional Residential Energy Retrofit
Solar Panels Drop in Price
http://www.backwoodssurvivalblog.com/2009/09/micro-hydro-for-homesteadretreat-power.html
Federal Reserve Accounts For 50% Of Q2 Treasury Purchases
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/20/2009 15:13 -0500
Accounting Banks C Deficits Equities FED Federal Reserve Federal Reserve System Flow Of Funds Home Equity Morgan Stanley MOVE Performance primary dealers QE Trade Treasuries Treasury US UST USTs
The degree of intermediation by the Federal Reserve in the issuance of US Treasuries hit a record in Q2, accounting for just under 50% of all net UST issuance absorption. This is a startling number, as the Fed's $164 billion in Q2 Treasury purchases dwarfs the combined foreign/household UST purchases of $101 billion and $29 billion, respectively, over the same time period. In fact, the Fed was a greater factor in UST demand than all three traditional players combined: Foreigners, Households and Primary Dealers, which amounted to a $158 billion in net Q2 purchases.
This dramatic imbalance puts a lot of question marks over how the upcoming hundreds of billions in incremental Treasury purchases will be soaked up, now that QE only has $15 billion of capacity for USTs: with Households lapping up risky assets it is unlikely they will look at Treasuries absent some dramatic downward move in equities, while Foreign purchasers, which many speculate are in a game of Mutual Assured Destruction regarding UST purchases, have in fact been aggressively lowering their purchases of Treasuries (from $159 billion in Q1 to $101 billion in Q2, an almost 40% decline in appetite!). Will the US make these purchases much more attractive come October when QE for USTs ends? And if so, what kind of rates are we talking about? One thing is certain: in terms of priorities of the Federal Reserve, keeping the equity market buoyant, is a distant second to ensuring successful auction after auction well into 2010. After all there is near $9 trillion in budget deficits that need financing over the next 10 years.
From Morgan Stanley:
Flow of funds: The Fed also released its flow of funds data for Q2 on September 17. The main points are that:
Households reduced Q2 Treasury purchases from their blistering pace in Q1
Foreign accounts reduced Q2 UST purchases as the Fed ramped up Q/E ops
Bank Q2 purchases remained anemic despite the fall in other lending options
Broker/dealer purchases were high but not sustainable, expect Q3 moderation
Households out…The salient points here include confirmation that the ‘households’ bid for $377 billion Treasuries in Q1 was a one-time reallocation trade as this account took down a much smaller $29 billion in Q2. We were afraid that this flow would not be sustainable, as the ‘households’ category really includes non-profits and other organizations that simply performed a one-time reallocation trade out of risky assets after their horrid performance in Q4 of last year.
Fed nudges out foreign bid…What is a bit worrisome at first glance is the slowdown in Treasury purchases by ‘foreign’ accounts from $159 billion in Q1 to $101 billion in Q2. Part of this likely reflects the crowding out of foreign investors by the Fed’s Treasury QE program which bought $164 billion Treasuries in Q2 (or close to 50% of the quarter’s net issuance) after a mere $16 billion purchase in Q1.
We anticipate this crowding out to continue in the Q3 data but for foreign accounts to return in Q4 once the Fed’s program expires. Bank buying still not large enough…While ‘banks’ have been ramping up their Treasury holdings with the latest quarter-on-quarter increase of 11%, the corresponding notional amount of $14 billion is still a bit of a disappointment considering the lack of alternative investment opportunities (e.g., C&I loans, home equity lines and consumer lending have all decreased in Q2). In fact, the ‘broker/dealers’ category experienced a much larger increase of $28 billion in Q2. This is generally consistent with the trend we’ve seen in the primary dealer positioning data from the Fed in for the first half of 2009, when primary dealers were reducing their Treasury shorts as they were also reducing their riskier longs in order to bring down the size of their balance sheets. With broker/dealer balance sheets now closer to the right size, we anticipate the broker/dealer buying has slowed down in Q3.
All else equal, these are precisely the questions that keep the Chairman up at night. The answers should present themselves quote soon.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/federal-reserve-accounts-50-q2-treasury-purchases
Europe faces spread of ‘severe’ disease, doctor warns
Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005
Dr. James Diaz of the Louisiana University Health Sciences Center
0 commentsPublished on 19 Sep 2009
The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America a decade ago, a U.S.
expert said on Friday.
Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France.
“We’re very worried,” Dr. James Diaz of the Louisiana University Health Sciences Center told a meeting on airlines, airports and disease transmission sponsored by the independent U.S. National Research Council.
“Unlike West Nile virus, where nine out of 10 people are going to be totally asymptomatic, or may have a mild headache or a stiff neck, if you get Chikungunya you’re going to be sick,” he said.
Travel by air will import the infected mosquitoes and humans. Chikungunya is coming $content.author.value
“The disease can be fatal. It’s a serious disease,” Diaz added. “There is no vaccine.”
Chikungunya infection causes fever, headache, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, rash and joint pain. Symptoms can last a few weeks, though some suffers have reported incapacitating joint pain or arthritis lasting months.
The disease was first discovered in Tanzania in 1952. Its name means “that which bends up” in the Makonde language spoken in northern Mozambique and southeastern Tanzania.
The virus could spread globally now because it can be carried by the Asian tiger mosquito, which is found in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
In the United States, the mosquito species tends to live in southern regions east of the Mississippi but has been found as far afield as western Texas, Minnesota and New Jersey.
Health officials are greatly concerned about the appearance of Chikungunya in the islands of the Indian Ocean - Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion - which have beach resorts frequented by European tourists.
“It is hyper-endemic in the islands of the Indian Ocean,” Diaz told the meeting.
“Travel by air will import the infected mosquitoes and humans,” he added. “Chikungunya is coming.”
Diaz warned of possible double-infections involving Chikungunya and dengue fever or malaria, which are also carried by the Asian tiger mosquito.
The spread of the disease could be greatest in so-called mega-cities such as Mumbai and Mexico City, which have large and impoverished populations, poor health controls and water systems that provide ready breeding grounds for mosquitoes, Diaz said.
West Nile, spread by a different mosquito species, first appeared in New York in 1999 and now can be found in most of North America.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/europe-faces-spread-of-severe-disease-doctor-warns-1.920844
Looks delicious!!
Yummm, dreaming about all that garlic. lol. I would rather eat roasted garlic than candy.
If I get around to it during the winter (the hoe) I will certainly post any progress I may make with it.
I guess it will depend on the weather. I've recently purchased a house in KY and of course there are improvements I'd like to make and some shifting of rooms and walls, and....well, you get the idea.
If the weather is bad for travel, I'll have time here. If it's decent, I'll probably be back and forth to KY working on that house there.
Sorry to hear about your eye, but I'm sure it will be better than new when they've finished fixing it.
You have been busy lately. Your garden next year should be a real success if preparation is any indicator.
Try throwing a sheet over the pole beans if you think it'll be that cold tonight.
Nice sleuthing...
Very true that. If we have another spring like this last one, I'm seriously going to try planting rice.
May as well give it a whirl, right? Could be interesting at the least.
Fed to start talks with dealers on using reverse repos
The Daily Bell
Issue 420 •
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Federal Reserve has started talks with bond dealers about withdrawing the unprecedented amount of cash injected into the financial system the last two years, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Central bank officials are discussing plans to use so-called reverse repurchase agreements to drain some of the $1 trillion they pumped into the economy, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. That's where the Fed sells securities to its 18 primary dealers for a specific period, temporarily decreasing the amount of money available in the banking system. - Bloomberg
Free-Market Analysis: Wow, no wonder only a few people understand monetary policy! Ask most people how they go about buying and selling and they will tell you that they either extend or receive currency - money of some sort. Ask them if they utilize repos and they are likely to look at you as if you are losing your marbles. But that is how central banking works. The arcane nature of the nomenclature and the complexity of the transactions would seem to ensure that average folks stay as far away from the subject as possible.
In fact, the Federal Reserve is wrestling with a fairly simple problem. It has printed too much money to refloat improvident banks and now must reduce the money supply without raising rates. This is not just problematic. It is likely as impossible - as we have pointed out - as winning a major lottery day after day for, say, a year. There are simply no diagnostic tools that the Fed's wise men can use to figure out how much money is too much money - and the reverse.
When the market was allowed to moderate the money supply, prices determined whether the supply of money (gold and silver) went up or down. Too much money in the system and mines shut down and hoarders ceased to sell their stockpiles of money metals. Too little money in the system and mines opened back up and hoarders began to sell. Thus it was that the market itself determined the money supply.
But now we have the wise men. They will sit around a polished table in an extremely elaborate setting and "argue" about whether or not the money supply is too big or too small. Eventually they will reach a "consensus" - either because the time allotted for the meeting is running out or because they have grown tired of bickering. This consensus is then what will determine how much money remains in the banking system, and eventually in the larger economy. But since the wise men have no tools to determine the correctness of their diagnosis (except hindsight) the consensus is likely as flawed as any other part of the process.
Conclusion: There is a big backlash building against the Fed and against the entire central banking process as it is practiced in the West. The backlash has been fueled by the Internet which has allowed the process of central banking to be explained in detail. This was impossible to do in the past and those who promoted and utilized the levers of central banking relied on the secret and complex nature surrounding what is essentially price fixing to defend again uncomfortable questions. Unfortunately for those who believe in the Platonic approach to statecraft, the wise man model is steadily being undone by the drumbeat of technology. Too many seem to understand what has taken place.
http://www.thedailybell.com/534/Fed-to-start-talks-with-dealers-on-using-reverse-repos.html
One of the downsides of containers. But that is definitely offset with almost zero need to weed them.
Or tomorrow or the next day or three either for here.
We got quite a bit yesterday with that storm moving through. There are still puddles in the fields.
I like the idea for this hoe, looks like a great work saver.
I was looking at the plans (and the cost to order materials from him), when I started thinking (dangerous, I know).
Since I don't have a metal shop, but I do have a wood shop, I got to thinking that maybe I could fabricate the whole hoe out of wood. Except for the blade of course.
If I'm not too busy this winter, I may give it a try.
Hope all is well with you.
What! You put your garden to sleep for winter already! I'm surprised that you don't have your fall crops growing.
Our second planting of beets and potatos are doing great, the brussel sprouts are getting bigger and of course the string beans are going still like gangbusters. The peppers and tomatos are also going too.
I forgot to plant the gourds (hits self in head here). Oh well, next time around.
Did you remember to plant your garlic??
Well, we did need the rain. I'm also pooped, running around like crazy lately. Tomorrow another busy day..Sigh.
Aa apt a description as any. Glad to have you back.
Trailing Indicators: Out of a Job, Some Decide to Take a Hike
RUTLAND, Vt. -- Unable to find steady work in a dismal Florida job market, Dan Kearns did something a lot of gainfully employed Americans can only dream of: Ditch the straight life and hike the length of the Appalachian Trail.
Dan Kearns
Shouldering a 50-pound backpack, the 32-year-old construction worker hopped onto the trail in April at Neels Gap, Ga., joining other "through-hikers" bound for the AT's northern end point, nearly 2,200 miles away in Maine's Baxter State Park. He sold his car for $1,000 to finance the first leg of the trip, relying after that on handouts and the occasional farm job -- often backbreaking work weeding vegetable beds or rolling bales of hay.
"I wouldn't do this if I was employed," the New Jersey native explains. "I couldn't find any work, so I just decided to take a walk."
He also took a trail moniker, "Snipe," and joined two hikers in Virginia who called themselves "Angry Hippie" and "Dance Party." Over Labor Day weekend, the three trudged into Rutland, the final stop before the slog through New Hampshire's White Mountains and Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness.
An economist might have another name for Snipe and his fellow travelers: trailing indicators. Depending on one's level of optimism, an Appalachian Trail through-hiker is either a symbol of a jobless recovery or of a still-deepening recession.
In any case, there has been a surplus of hikers this year on the Appalachian Trail, which was unexpectedly in the news in June when South Carolina's Gov. Mark Sanford used the excuse of hiking the trail while pursuing an extramarital affair in Argentina. Typically, about 1,000 hikers leave Georgia each spring in hopes of completing the trail in one all-out trek. This year, trail monitors say, close to 1,400 hikers were in the first wave, with hundreds more following behind through early summer.
Now, as the last of the north-bounders -- known as NoBos -- enter New England, they're meeting lagging south-bounders, or SoBos, racing toward Georgia. Hikers say they budget $1 a mile for food and the rare motel stay, making life on the trail cheaper than life in town -- and much more socially acceptable.
Hikers Work For Food on the Appalachian Trail
2:56
More than 1,400 hikers attempted to trek the entire Appalachian Trail this season. Many swapped work for food and a place to stay along the way.
"If you do this on the trail, you're a hiker," says The Druid, a 48-year-old south-bounder from Tennessee. "If you do this off the trail, you're a bum."
NoBos and SoBos are reminiscent of the hobos of the Great Depression, though there aren't so many of them this time. Moreover, they're a throwback to a simpler economy, where swapping short-term labor for food and shelter was common.
That barter system remains today. Dozens of "Trail Angels" provide free meals and lodging to hikers who are short of cash. "I was shooting pool in Duncannon, Pa., with a hiker named Big Camera. I heard a guy at the bar offering $12 an hour to clean his yard," recalls Jack Magullian, a 55-year-old through-hiker whose trail name is Archaeopterix.
Motel operator Ron Haven of Franklin, N.C., is known as a generous soul, willing to exchange nights in beds that have real sheets for light labor like cleaning guest rooms.
Elmer Hall at the Sunnybank Inn nearby in Hot Springs is another soft touch. "People will stay for a week or a month," says Mr. Hall, who hiked most of the AT himself in 1976. He pays $8 an hour to anyone who stays more than a week and does chores. This season he has employed about 75 through-hikers, he says, mainly to toss feed to his ducks and chickens, or to pick berries or weed his organic garden.
"I saw more people who are out of work this year," Mr. Hall adds. "You get six months' government unemployment, and it's cheaper to live off the land."
Some people complain of aggressive panhandling, robberies and homeless hikers blending in with genuine backpackers to take advantage of free food or work-for-stay opportunities.
Andrea Wilkins, from Maryland, and Jon Letteer, a Texan, are two south-bounders.
"The biggest problem is the have-nots latching onto the haves and trying to mooch their way up the trail," says Jeff Hoch, who runs The Hike Inn close to where the Appalachian Trail enters Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "This creates stress around the campsites."
Up in New England, through-hikers have become a popular form of just-in-time labor for rural businesses, especially for organic farmers like Joseph De Sena.
He operates Amee Farm in Pittsfield, Vt., which lies a few miles from a trailhead. Mr. De Sena says that in a good year, "hikers could provide 50% of the labor we need," doing everything from watering lettuce in the greenhouse, to weeding the garden to shearing the sheep.
He estimates that hiring similar labor locally, if he could find it, would cost $50 to $75 a day. He does a barter deal with hikers who stay at the farm in exchange for their labor. No money is exchanged.
But it isn't always an easy fit, Mr. De Sena says.
"We thought there was a correlation between people who would hike the 2,200 miles and an incredible work ethic," says the 40-year-old entrepreneur, a former Wall Street trader who, besides farming, also operates an asset-management firm. "Turns out those people tend to be athletic hippies, just looking to have fun forever."
He lucked out when he met Wes Foster and Stacy Burdett, two through-hikers from Tampa, Fla., who recently completed their journey. The couple decided to winter at Amee Farm, swapping their labor for room and board and the chance to learn organic farming.
"I'd love to have a farm like this one day," says Ms. Burdett, who has a degree in massage therapy and worked in theater production before hiking the trail.
Dominic Palumbo's Moon in the Pond organic farm in Sheffield, Mass., is another AT neighbor who harvests through-hikers' labor.
Wes Foster and Stacy Burdett swap work at farms for lodging along the Appalachian Trail.
Mr. Palumbo's efforts began in 2005, when a former through-hiker named Rich Ciotola came to work at Moon in the Pond as an apprentice.
"We were short of hands, and had no money to hire anyone," the 53-year-old farmer recalls. "Rich just ran up the trail and came back with some guys." Mr. Palumbo has been relying on hikers ever since, even publicizing his work-for-stay swap in trail guides. This summer Mr. Ciotola began working his own farm, employing hikers from his old mentor's spread whenever he had extras to spare.
Andrea Wilkins, from Maryland, and Jon Letteer, a Texan, were two south-bounders who worked at Moon in the Pond this month. The two labored 14-hour days in the late summer sun but were grateful for a respite from walking.
Mr. Letteer, 23, has a job waiting for him in Austin, but his 22-year-old hiking partner doesn't. She says that once she finishes hiking, she hopes to join the Peace Corps and go to Africa or Micronesia. "They asked if I had farming experience when I applied, and I hadn't," she says, stretching as she weeds onions. "But this is farm experience that could go on my résumé. Man, they would love it!"
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
The last name of Jeff Hoch, who runs The Hike Inn trail hostel near the Appalachian Trail, was misspelled as Hooch in a previous version of this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125348373308426061.html#mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_careerjournal
Trailing Indicators: Out of a Job, Some Decide to Take a Hike
RUTLAND, Vt. -- Unable to find steady work in a dismal Florida job market, Dan Kearns did something a lot of gainfully employed Americans can only dream of: Ditch the straight life and hike the length of the Appalachian Trail.
Dan Kearns
Shouldering a 50-pound backpack, the 32-year-old construction worker hopped onto the trail in April at Neels Gap, Ga., joining other "through-hikers" bound for the AT's northern end point, nearly 2,200 miles away in Maine's Baxter State Park. He sold his car for $1,000 to finance the first leg of the trip, relying after that on handouts and the occasional farm job -- often backbreaking work weeding vegetable beds or rolling bales of hay.
"I wouldn't do this if I was employed," the New Jersey native explains. "I couldn't find any work, so I just decided to take a walk."
He also took a trail moniker, "Snipe," and joined two hikers in Virginia who called themselves "Angry Hippie" and "Dance Party." Over Labor Day weekend, the three trudged into Rutland, the final stop before the slog through New Hampshire's White Mountains and Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness.
An economist might have another name for Snipe and his fellow travelers: trailing indicators. Depending on one's level of optimism, an Appalachian Trail through-hiker is either a symbol of a jobless recovery or of a still-deepening recession.
In any case, there has been a surplus of hikers this year on the Appalachian Trail, which was unexpectedly in the news in June when South Carolina's Gov. Mark Sanford used the excuse of hiking the trail while pursuing an extramarital affair in Argentina. Typically, about 1,000 hikers leave Georgia each spring in hopes of completing the trail in one all-out trek. This year, trail monitors say, close to 1,400 hikers were in the first wave, with hundreds more following behind through early summer.
Now, as the last of the north-bounders -- known as NoBos -- enter New England, they're meeting lagging south-bounders, or SoBos, racing toward Georgia. Hikers say they budget $1 a mile for food and the rare motel stay, making life on the trail cheaper than life in town -- and much more socially acceptable.
Hikers Work For Food on the Appalachian Trail
2:56
More than 1,400 hikers attempted to trek the entire Appalachian Trail this season. Many swapped work for food and a place to stay along the way.
"If you do this on the trail, you're a hiker," says The Druid, a 48-year-old south-bounder from Tennessee. "If you do this off the trail, you're a bum."
NoBos and SoBos are reminiscent of the hobos of the Great Depression, though there aren't so many of them this time. Moreover, they're a throwback to a simpler economy, where swapping short-term labor for food and shelter was common.
That barter system remains today. Dozens of "Trail Angels" provide free meals and lodging to hikers who are short of cash. "I was shooting pool in Duncannon, Pa., with a hiker named Big Camera. I heard a guy at the bar offering $12 an hour to clean his yard," recalls Jack Magullian, a 55-year-old through-hiker whose trail name is Archaeopterix.
Motel operator Ron Haven of Franklin, N.C., is known as a generous soul, willing to exchange nights in beds that have real sheets for light labor like cleaning guest rooms.
Elmer Hall at the Sunnybank Inn nearby in Hot Springs is another soft touch. "People will stay for a week or a month," says Mr. Hall, who hiked most of the AT himself in 1976. He pays $8 an hour to anyone who stays more than a week and does chores. This season he has employed about 75 through-hikers, he says, mainly to toss feed to his ducks and chickens, or to pick berries or weed his organic garden.
"I saw more people who are out of work this year," Mr. Hall adds. "You get six months' government unemployment, and it's cheaper to live off the land."
Some people complain of aggressive panhandling, robberies and homeless hikers blending in with genuine backpackers to take advantage of free food or work-for-stay opportunities.
Andrea Wilkins, from Maryland, and Jon Letteer, a Texan, are two south-bounders.
"The biggest problem is the have-nots latching onto the haves and trying to mooch their way up the trail," says Jeff Hoch, who runs The Hike Inn close to where the Appalachian Trail enters Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "This creates stress around the campsites."
Up in New England, through-hikers have become a popular form of just-in-time labor for rural businesses, especially for organic farmers like Joseph De Sena.
He operates Amee Farm in Pittsfield, Vt., which lies a few miles from a trailhead. Mr. De Sena says that in a good year, "hikers could provide 50% of the labor we need," doing everything from watering lettuce in the greenhouse, to weeding the garden to shearing the sheep.
He estimates that hiring similar labor locally, if he could find it, would cost $50 to $75 a day. He does a barter deal with hikers who stay at the farm in exchange for their labor. No money is exchanged.
But it isn't always an easy fit, Mr. De Sena says.
"We thought there was a correlation between people who would hike the 2,200 miles and an incredible work ethic," says the 40-year-old entrepreneur, a former Wall Street trader who, besides farming, also operates an asset-management firm. "Turns out those people tend to be athletic hippies, just looking to have fun forever."
He lucked out when he met Wes Foster and Stacy Burdett, two through-hikers from Tampa, Fla., who recently completed their journey. The couple decided to winter at Amee Farm, swapping their labor for room and board and the chance to learn organic farming.
"I'd love to have a farm like this one day," says Ms. Burdett, who has a degree in massage therapy and worked in theater production before hiking the trail.
Dominic Palumbo's Moon in the Pond organic farm in Sheffield, Mass., is another AT neighbor who harvests through-hikers' labor.
Wes Foster and Stacy Burdett swap work at farms for lodging along the Appalachian Trail.
Mr. Palumbo's efforts began in 2005, when a former through-hiker named Rich Ciotola came to work at Moon in the Pond as an apprentice.
"We were short of hands, and had no money to hire anyone," the 53-year-old farmer recalls. "Rich just ran up the trail and came back with some guys." Mr. Palumbo has been relying on hikers ever since, even publicizing his work-for-stay swap in trail guides. This summer Mr. Ciotola began working his own farm, employing hikers from his old mentor's spread whenever he had extras to spare.
Andrea Wilkins, from Maryland, and Jon Letteer, a Texan, were two south-bounders who worked at Moon in the Pond this month. The two labored 14-hour days in the late summer sun but were grateful for a respite from walking.
Mr. Letteer, 23, has a job waiting for him in Austin, but his 22-year-old hiking partner doesn't. She says that once she finishes hiking, she hopes to join the Peace Corps and go to Africa or Micronesia. "They asked if I had farming experience when I applied, and I hadn't," she says, stretching as she weeds onions. "But this is farm experience that could go on my résumé. Man, they would love it!"
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
The last name of Jeff Hoch, who runs The Hike Inn trail hostel near the Appalachian Trail, was misspelled as Hooch in a previous version of this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125348373308426061.html#mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_careerjournal
I see it's Peter's nappy time, Nicky too?
Who wouldn't love banana's?
Wow, that was huge thunder just now. Hope the electric doesn't go out.
About the only thing freely available in Walmart for the last three months or so is shotgun shells. All else is usually completely non-exsistent.
Sketchy in lots of other places too.
Huge Anglo-Saxon gold hoard found
Hundreds of gold artefacts were discovered buried in the field
The UK's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon gold has been discovered buried beneath a field in Staffordshire.
Experts said the collection of 1,500 pieces, which may date back to the 7th Century, is unparalleled in size.
A spokeswoman for the British Museum said the find, which is due to be classed as treasure, was the equivalent of finding a "new Book of Kells".
Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said it "was what metal detectorists dream of".
It may take more than a year for the gold, which is expected to be classed by a coroner as treasure later, to be valued.
(It is) absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells
Leslie Webster, British Museum
The collection contains about 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, making it far bigger than the Sutton Hoo discovery in 1939 when 1.5kg of Anglo-Saxon gold was found near Woodbridge in Suffolk.
Leslie Webster, former keeper at the British Museum's Department of Prehistory and Europe, said: "This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries.
"(It is) absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells."
'Absolutely phenomenal'
Mr Herbert, 55, of Burntwood in Staffordshire, who has been metal detecting for 18 years, came across the hoard as he searched land belonging to a farmer friend. The exact location has not been disclosed.
"I have this phrase that I say sometimes; 'spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear', but on that day I changed coins to gold.
"I don't know why I said it that day but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it.
I saw boxes of gold, items exhibiting the very finest Anglo-Saxon workmanship
Duncan Slarke, Finds Liaison Officer
"This is what metal detectorists dream of, finding stuff like this. But the vast amount there is is just unbelievable."
Duncan Slarke, finds liaison officer for Staffordshire, was the first professional to see the hoard which contains warfare paraphernalia, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates inlaid with precious stones.
"Nothing could have prepared me for that," he said.
"I saw boxes full of gold, items exhibiting the very finest Anglo-Saxon workmanship.
"This is absolutely phenomenal.
"It is a hugely important find - the most important one that I have dealt with, but this has got to rank as one of the biggest in the country."
The collection is currently being kept in secure storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery but a selection of the items are to be displayed at the museum from Friday until 13 October.
A Treasure Valuation Committee made up of independent experts will then value the find.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm
yes, does your camera look like cheese? lol
Ahh, here's the rain now.
Thursday: The Day a President Becomes `King of the World’
By Judi McLeod Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Pittsburgh, Pa will become the window of the `New World’ this Thursday, when Barack Hussein Obama completes the circle by stepping out from the dark shadows where he’s been lurking since Jan. 20 onto the world stage. It is on Thursday when Obama meets his destiny as `King of the World’.
That he’s ravaged the United States of America in his climb to the top will be totally missed by the mainstream media.
We can only hope that Reuters writers got it right when they predicted it is doubtful that national governments will bow to external advice from the launch of a New World Order.
Thursday is Red Letter Day for Obama’s long-touted “Change”.
The omnipresent abilities of President Everywhere will be made manifest on that day as Thursday kicks off both the opening day of the Group of 20 Summit, and Obama’s precedent-breaking U.S. President chairmanship of the UN Security Council summit.
The ghosts, which have risen from the cemetery to pave the way for this chapter in history, which could be chronicled as “Make Way for the King of the World”, include the recently resurrected Maurice Strong.
Americans suffering loss of jobs, homes and savings in ObamaNation have been officially categorized as the “new poor” by the Canadian wizard who has been leading the call for One World Government from cushy chambers for decades.
“The economic crisis which began in the United States and now extends to virtually all countries has exacerbated the poverty of millions of people, mainly in the developing world, who have long been suffering from economic crisis beyond anything experienced by the “new” poor in the more developed countries,” says Strong. (http://www.cooperationearth.com, June, 2009). “There is universal recognition of the need to reform and remake our economy. The poor and disadvantaged must be fully and equitably engaged in this process and their interests a primary motivator and beneficiary of the new economy.”
It is the fault of the Americans as they have “exacerbated” the poverty of “millions of people in the developing world”, according to this UN carpetbagger.
What a crock! No people have been more generous to the poor in developing countries than the Americans.
But in order to finish their final chapter, Chairman Mo and King Hussein are going to save the world poor on the backs of the newly-made poor in America.
Strong, who has been lobbing metaphoric bombs at the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave from distant shores ever since disappearing from the International scene in the aftermath of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, speaks the same language as `The Messiah’.
Strong, a Canadian, is top Pooh-Bah among the world’s leading proponents for global environmental cooperation. An architect of the Kyoto Protocol, he was Secretary General of the Stockholm Conference, the first major intergovernmental conference on the environment, and was elected as the first head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Although his intentions were not recognized by the masses back then, in 1992 Strong was Secretary General of the UN Conference on Environment and Development—the oft-cited Rio Environmental Summit. This landmark event, led by Strong, and drummed to success by his then wife, Hanne calling on the energy of Mother Earth, was attended by more heads of government than had ever met together before, and resulted in the first-ever global cooperation on so-called climate change.
Now that climate change had been tabled, Strong could go on with former US Vice President Al Gore could to profit through carbon “credits” courtesy of the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Though New Worlders never admit to their work behind the stage, Strong is one of the three puppet masters who pulls the strings of Zombie-in-a-suit Barack Obama. He and Obama bagman George Soros were business partners in a company that promoted the Chinese Chery car, which they boasted in 2006 would outsell General Motors. Number three in the Obama King of the World chapter in world history is former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who worked with Maurice Strong on replacing the Ten Commandments with the Earth Charter.
But until the crown is placed on King Obama’s head, the language describing what is about to take place is being kept safely temperate.
A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings.
“The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not matched by offsetting adjustments in other parts,” said the document, which was obtained by Reuters on Monday.
“The framework drafted by U.S. policy makers foresaw analysis of G20 members’ economic policies by the International Monetary Fund to figure out if they were consistent with better balanced growth.
“We call on our finance ministers to launch the new framework by November,” the document said, signaling a determined effort to maintain momentum for change created by last year’s global financial crisis.
“The United States envisages the IMF playing a central role in a process of “mutual assessment” by making policy recommendations to the G20 every six months.
“Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 countries are due to meet November 7-8 in Scotland.
“European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said persuading Europe, the United States and China to accept IMF advice on economic policy may be difficult. In the past, many countries have ignored suggestions the IMF dished out in regular reviews.
“Trichet told French newspaper Le Monde the G20 had made progress on reforms to make the financial system more stable after the crisis.
“The most difficult question is still open: Europe, America, China, are they ready to modify their macroeconomic policies in the future—by following the advice of the IMF and under pressure from their peers, for the common good, and world economic stability?” he said in the piece on Monday.
“G7 sources told Reuters there was a renewed determination to cooperate because the crisis had driven home the interconnected nature of the global system. That said, governments would not allow themselves to be told what to do.
“We can’t get to a situation where any country is giving up its own decision-making,” said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Germany, a major exporter to the United States, was singled out on Sunday by U.S. President Barack Obama as a country that, like China, exports a lot but does not buy much back.
“But a top European Union official said that the euro zone, where 16 countries share a common currency, had to act as a collective.
“It is difficult to think about one country without taking into consideration what is the impact in the euro area,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters in New York.
“Taxpayer money to the tune of $5 trillion has been pumped into the world economy to keep it from seizing up since the beginning of the crisis last September.
“G20 leaders will maintain that pace of stimulus while acknowledging that at some point it will have to be wound down, the document said.
“But, mindful of how a disorderly rush to raise interest rates could roil world markets again, they will also ask finance ministers to thrash out a “transparent and credible” exit strategy.”
Meanwhile, The President of the US has morphed into the mists making way for the new mantra: “Long live the King of the World”.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/14981
Thursday: The Day a President Becomes `King of the World’
By Judi McLeod Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Pittsburgh, Pa will become the window of the `New World’ this Thursday, when Barack Hussein Obama completes the circle by stepping out from the dark shadows where he’s been lurking since Jan. 20 onto the world stage. It is on Thursday when Obama meets his destiny as `King of the World’.
That he’s ravaged the United States of America in his climb to the top will be totally missed by the mainstream media.
We can only hope that Reuters writers got it right when they predicted it is doubtful that national governments will bow to external advice from the launch of a New World Order.
Thursday is Red Letter Day for Obama’s long-touted “Change”.
The omnipresent abilities of President Everywhere will be made manifest on that day as Thursday kicks off both the opening day of the Group of 20 Summit, and Obama’s precedent-breaking U.S. President chairmanship of the UN Security Council summit.
The ghosts, which have risen from the cemetery to pave the way for this chapter in history, which could be chronicled as “Make Way for the King of the World”, include the recently resurrected Maurice Strong.
Americans suffering loss of jobs, homes and savings in ObamaNation have been officially categorized as the “new poor” by the Canadian wizard who has been leading the call for One World Government from cushy chambers for decades.
“The economic crisis which began in the United States and now extends to virtually all countries has exacerbated the poverty of millions of people, mainly in the developing world, who have long been suffering from economic crisis beyond anything experienced by the “new” poor in the more developed countries,” says Strong. (http://www.cooperationearth.com, June, 2009). “There is universal recognition of the need to reform and remake our economy. The poor and disadvantaged must be fully and equitably engaged in this process and their interests a primary motivator and beneficiary of the new economy.”
It is the fault of the Americans as they have “exacerbated” the poverty of “millions of people in the developing world”, according to this UN carpetbagger.
What a crock! No people have been more generous to the poor in developing countries than the Americans.
But in order to finish their final chapter, Chairman Mo and King Hussein are going to save the world poor on the backs of the newly-made poor in America.
Strong, who has been lobbing metaphoric bombs at the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave from distant shores ever since disappearing from the International scene in the aftermath of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, speaks the same language as `The Messiah’.
Strong, a Canadian, is top Pooh-Bah among the world’s leading proponents for global environmental cooperation. An architect of the Kyoto Protocol, he was Secretary General of the Stockholm Conference, the first major intergovernmental conference on the environment, and was elected as the first head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Although his intentions were not recognized by the masses back then, in 1992 Strong was Secretary General of the UN Conference on Environment and Development—the oft-cited Rio Environmental Summit. This landmark event, led by Strong, and drummed to success by his then wife, Hanne calling on the energy of Mother Earth, was attended by more heads of government than had ever met together before, and resulted in the first-ever global cooperation on so-called climate change.
Now that climate change had been tabled, Strong could go on with former US Vice President Al Gore could to profit through carbon “credits” courtesy of the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Though New Worlders never admit to their work behind the stage, Strong is one of the three puppet masters who pulls the strings of Zombie-in-a-suit Barack Obama. He and Obama bagman George Soros were business partners in a company that promoted the Chinese Chery car, which they boasted in 2006 would outsell General Motors. Number three in the Obama King of the World chapter in world history is former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who worked with Maurice Strong on replacing the Ten Commandments with the Earth Charter.
But until the crown is placed on King Obama’s head, the language describing what is about to take place is being kept safely temperate.
A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings.
“The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not matched by offsetting adjustments in other parts,” said the document, which was obtained by Reuters on Monday.
“The framework drafted by U.S. policy makers foresaw analysis of G20 members’ economic policies by the International Monetary Fund to figure out if they were consistent with better balanced growth.
“We call on our finance ministers to launch the new framework by November,” the document said, signaling a determined effort to maintain momentum for change created by last year’s global financial crisis.
“The United States envisages the IMF playing a central role in a process of “mutual assessment” by making policy recommendations to the G20 every six months.
“Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 countries are due to meet November 7-8 in Scotland.
“European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said persuading Europe, the United States and China to accept IMF advice on economic policy may be difficult. In the past, many countries have ignored suggestions the IMF dished out in regular reviews.
“Trichet told French newspaper Le Monde the G20 had made progress on reforms to make the financial system more stable after the crisis.
“The most difficult question is still open: Europe, America, China, are they ready to modify their macroeconomic policies in the future—by following the advice of the IMF and under pressure from their peers, for the common good, and world economic stability?” he said in the piece on Monday.
“G7 sources told Reuters there was a renewed determination to cooperate because the crisis had driven home the interconnected nature of the global system. That said, governments would not allow themselves to be told what to do.
“We can’t get to a situation where any country is giving up its own decision-making,” said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Germany, a major exporter to the United States, was singled out on Sunday by U.S. President Barack Obama as a country that, like China, exports a lot but does not buy much back.
“But a top European Union official said that the euro zone, where 16 countries share a common currency, had to act as a collective.
“It is difficult to think about one country without taking into consideration what is the impact in the euro area,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters in New York.
“Taxpayer money to the tune of $5 trillion has been pumped into the world economy to keep it from seizing up since the beginning of the crisis last September.
“G20 leaders will maintain that pace of stimulus while acknowledging that at some point it will have to be wound down, the document said.
“But, mindful of how a disorderly rush to raise interest rates could roil world markets again, they will also ask finance ministers to thrash out a “transparent and credible” exit strategy.”
Meanwhile, The President of the US has morphed into the mists making way for the new mantra: “Long live the King of the World”.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/14981
So much weird weather has happened this year, I wouldn't be surprised by more.
I swear Nicky looks like he's saying "cheese" for that picture!
You are going to be picking Pequins in December! That poor plant is about a third of the one from last year.
The tomatos look great though. Mine are also doing really well now with lots of flowers and tomatos on them.
Crazy year for growing things.
Lots of thunder and lightening here now, but no rain yet...
Those look like one of the varieties of stringbeans I grew this year, but of course the name of them now eludes me...lol
My favorites, and also the best growers and providers, are the Kentucky Wonder and the Dove beans (the Dove's are the completely purple beans. They do turn green after you cook them though).
Most excellent article!
Ah, then it will have to be Tuesday's dinner. Too busy tomorrow to cook.
Nope, doesn't sound like it would. Collards at least are 'closer'.
Well, that was lucky. Poor Peter.
Hmmm, maybe Mondays dinner. Now, off to bed for me.